Afterward
by exit laughing
Summary: The title says it all. Rated for some, but very little, swearing.


**A.N.: **The song is "Pain" by Jimmy Eat World. I heard it and it reminded me vaguely of the Outsiders, so I figured I would write a songfic about it.

**Notes: **Short, just a bunch of musings by one of the gang. I couldn't decide between Steve or Two-Bit as the narrator — I felt a little bit like Two-Bit but it's whoever the reader feels it should be — so I didn't mention either in here.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the Outsiders, obviously. ;)

**Afterward**

**I don't feel the way I've ever felt.**

**I know.**

**I'm gonna smile and not get worried.**

**I try but it shows.**

I'm just gonna pretend it didn't happen. Ignore it. Maybe then I'll actually convince myself that nothin' did happen. Maybe then things'll go back to the way the used to be before all this. I've been through some pretty rough patches in my life, and I've figgered out that the phrase "just grin and bear it" works -- for me, at least. You just learn to get over it.

Oh, damn, who do I think I'm woofin'?

Nothin'll ever be the same again. We've lost two of our gang now, in the same night, and it's like I've lost a brother or somethin'. Like part of me was ripped out and stomped on, and I ain't me anymore. I wonder if this is how the Curtis's felt after their parents died. Geesh, no wonder Pony was bawlin' for months. I felt like bawlin', too, but right now... I dunno, it's like I forgot how to cry. Like the tears figgered they didn't have to stick around anymore, 'cause they weren't wanted. I wonder what it would feel like to just... cry.

Johnny. Why'd it have to be Johnny? He was only sixteen, damnit, and all those years were spent gettin' beat up by his old man and ignored by his ma. He wouldna known family if he hadn't met us. He wouldna... he wouldna died if he hadn't met us. Well, he woulda died eventually. Maybe a drunk dad would've been the last thing he'd ever seen if we hadn't taken him in. Or that cheap broad of a ma. I dunno, but I think I woulda wanted to go out a hero, like Johnny did. I guess maybe, just maybe, Johnny woulda wanted that too.

We'd always known he was better than all of us, except for Pony -- and maybe Darry. He was always better than a hood, and he shouldna had to be one, but that's just the way things swing around here: if you aren't into the Beatles and don't dig tennis, you're automatically a good-for-nothin' Greaser. Well Johnny wasn't good-for-nothin' and he wasn't a Greaser -- or, at least, he shouldna been. It wasn't his fault that his parents were a bunch assholes, just like it wasn't his fault that his _family _couldn't afford a nicer home. And I don't care what anyone says, it wasn't his fault that Soc died, neither. What would any of them have done if you were watchin' your buddy get drowned in front of your eyes, especially if you had a score to settle with the guy doin' it...

But I don't think Johnny woulda hurt that guy otherwise. Knifin' just wasn't Johnny's style.

As for Dally... he dug okay, even if we didn't all think so sometimes. He was a real JD, y'know, the kind that go around liftin' convenience stores and beatin' up people for fun and all that, but he was alright. Dally'd never known any different. For him, it'd been either get tough or get dead, and he wasn't too crazy about dyin'. So he got tough. But he was cool. He stuck by his buddies, and I can't remember him ever lettin' a single one of us down -- even Pony and Johnny, when he'd helped them out even though that was almost as good as signin' his death certificate.

Dally'd always treated Johnny different then anybody else, though. I've always wondered why, but I guess Dally mighta seen a little bit of himself in Johnny. Like Johnny was Dally before Dally hardened up. Sounds crazy, huh, tryin' to compare those two in any way at all, but I reckon it's probably true. I've never been very perceptive, though, so I couldn't tell ya.

We'd always known Dally would go out with a bang. That's just the way Dally did things: loud and noisy or not at all. He liked people to know his name and his rep, 'cause he was kinda proud of 'em. But no one but us and the damned fuzz had been around to see the end of Dallas Winston -- dramatic as it was. Dally had finally snapped. We thought about one of us dyin', but we was just jokin' around, we'd never figgered on this. Part of me still don't believe it happened. Not to Dally. He was too tough.

It's been... dead... around here since _that _night. None of us have had a good fight since the rumble, but I sure could use one: fightin's a great way to blow off steam. I've been smokin' more lately to calm myself down (a habit I picked up from Pony, but that kid could still beat my record no sweat). Darry's gettin' worried about him -- Pony, I mean. I guess his grades are slippin' or somethin'. I figger that's a stupid thing to get upset about; Pony's got a lot on his mind. We all do. And if his science grade slips down a number, what's it to any of us?

Soda and Darry've been okay, but things still ain't like they used to be. Soda doesn't smile as much and Darry always look so grim. Even the supply of chocolate cakes has suffered. Soda's still workin' at the DX and Darry's picked up some odd construction jobs, and they're hardly ever at home anymore. It gets awful lonely there by myself, let me tell you. It lets me have too much time to think, and thinkin' ain't somethin' I'm too anxious to start doin'. If I do, I'm gonna start thinkin' about everything that's gone wrong and that coulda been better, and then I'd just...

See? Too much time.

I dunno. I've gone through a lot of crap in my life, but I've never complained. Not once. I never pegged life as being unfair, like everybody else says it is. Life's a ride, and you can either enjoy the time you've got on it or spend your time glaring out the window. But that ride's slowed down lately, almost to a halt, and I can't get it to start again.

Oh well. Maybe things'll get better, like they have a way of doin'. I just need time. That's what my mom would've said. "Time heals all wounds," she woulda told me. And I woulda believed her, back then. But I ain't so sure now. What've I got to go on? Sure, it wasn't so hard on me when dad left and ma had to pick up a coupla extra jobs to support me, and then when ma died... nah, that was hard then, but I got over it. Still, everytime someone brings up their parents, it's like this whole in me being ripped open again and again until I talk myself out of it, tell myself that that's all in the past and done with now. But I'm gonna be around the guys everyday, and it'll just be like a ghost of the two people who'd left us were standin' their hauntin' our conversations... That hole'll be torn open everytime I look at any of the gang.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm gonna bleed to death.

But I can't worry about it. I've gotta pretend it don't mean nothin' to me, and maybe things'll get better. Maybe, just maybe.

**I can't let it bother me.**

**Take my pain away!**

**A.N. – **I altered the line "take my pain away"; it's supposed to be "takes my pain away", but that didn't seem to fit. Did you like it? Yes? No? Indifferent? Please review, and please don't flame! ;)


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